


Just(You Do It To Yourself)

by kaixo (ballpoint)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, Liverpool F.C., The Ache in Your Legs Footy Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2392439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/kaixo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People leave all the time. Steven knows this, he knows this, he knows this. So why does he let himself forget?</p><p>Taken from this prompt from the footie ficathon over there in LJ: Xabi Alonso/Steven Gerrard; people leave all the time. you know this, you know this, you know this. so why did you let yourself forgot? [sic]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just(You Do It To Yourself)

_Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos._ \- Charles Schulz

 

If some dodgy bloke appearing from nowhere rocked up to him on the training ground, palming a cure for the ache that loss left, Steven Gerrard would have upended it with the same ease like he did a Carlsberg back in his early, less circumspect days; like that time he wanked in a sock at seventeen- and his mum stumbled across it- never mind. The point is, he’d have upended it like a pint. 

Michael Owen would have been the first one Gerrard would have poured into the shot-glass; the _wunderkinder_ whose light threw everyone else in shadow. A regular child prodigy, a first class striker, with the ball at his feet, everyone knew something would happen. The lad who struck fear in the opposition’s hearts, dragging his team behind him, dazzling in Liverpool red. 

Steven glad to be his support, his passer, his link, because with Owen, they could do it all _together_ ; Big Ears, Champions League, the lot. Genuine, real Roy of the Rovers against all odds stuff- the comics coming to life. In his head, Steven already built and gilded the narrative. No surprise then, how Michael’s news blindsided him like a sudden ball ripping through a previously unsurmountable offence and goalkeeper, slotting into the back of the net; eking out a draw instead of the opposing side’s sure win in the last minute before stoppage time.

“I guess, I need to tell you this before you hear the news from someone else,” Michael said, after the day’s training had finished, and everyone else moved towards the dressing room before changing and going home. Steven shrugged into his shell top, and zipped it up against the wind, despite the fact the wind had no chill in it. Wednesday evening at the end of June, the day as long as summer promised to be, the sky edging from orange to rose, smearing across the sky. “I’m going to Real Madrid. Everything’s agreed, but I have to keep it _schtum_ until it’s official like.”

“W- what?” 

“Lad, don’t be like that, you _know_ that I was always keen on Real Madrid. _Los blancos_ , Spain... if they said come, you know I’d say yes.”

“I know,” Steven mouthed the words, still processing the news. He _knew_ Michael was good enough, but still, _the fuck_ , why didn’t he want to stay here?

Steven opened his mouth to sell the merits of Liverpool- the Kop, the fans loved a local boy done good, and they were doing great, weren’t they? Every honour they got, made the injustice of the ‘96 shone more. You couldn’t shine on the injustice if you were a middling club languishing mid-table. You couldn’t- but the words turned to ashes in his mouth. Michael - a lad who you wouldn’t say was one given to emotions unless a grimace from injury- was smiling now, because all his Christmases had come at once. What else could Steven do but -- whoop and lift Michael in the air. 

“Congratulations, you jammy wanker!” Steven screamed, spinning him around. Michael laughed, throwing his arms outwards, as if he wanted to hug the world. 

“Don’t try and injure me, you tosser!”

“Good luck to ya,” Steven panted when he let Michael down, pushed him away from him, squeezing his shoulders. “Have some sangria and all that for me, eh?”

“Yeah,” Michael rolled his shoulders, Steven's hands sliding off them, as Michael raked his fingers through his hair. His gaze far off in the distance, and Steven knew, Owen had already left Liverpool behind. “Sure.”

***

Xabi Alonso hailed from the country that Michael had decamped to. So did Rafael Benitez.

“I think, that’s irony, lad,” Steven grumbled to Carra. They were in one of the bars that catered to the football club- protecting them from themselves- as well as the English press to be fair. It helped that unlike Manchester United, they didn’t have the lights of the British press up in their arses half the time. 

“Weren’t you looking to leave too that time?” Carra looked up from his pint, “There was that little thing about Che-”

“Sssh,” Steven shifted to delicately place a finger on Carra’s lips, but drink made his actions clumsy, and his palm ended up across Carra's mouth and chin instead. “We don’t ssshhhpppeak of Chsthem.”

Carra fixed a shrewd look from the corner of his eye at Steven as Steven removed his hand, placing it back on the bar top. “So, what do you think of them?”

“The gaffer?”

“Yeah, him too, but the lads, I mean. We _like_ Luis, but Alonso-?”

“Quality, you've seen him on the pitch today. Touch, pass, tactics. No messin’ about. Erm... ” Steven took a measured sip from his glass, half swishing the beer in his mouth, enjoying the semi bitter taste of it, feeling tipsy enough to say the bleeding obvious, but drunk enough for the fact to be almost abstract in its truth and not hurt as much. “He’s better than me, to be honest.”

“Give over!”

“No, no mate, listen,” Steven waved Carra off, and had to quickly right himself as he almost lost his balance, his drink sloshing over the rim of the glass and splashing on the bar counter. Carra grabbed at his elbow to steady him so he could stay on the barstool. “You’ve read the press.”

“Wankers, the lot of them.”

Steven gave a slow, exaggerated nod, relieved that the room stayed steady this time. “This is true, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, lad. He’s better than I am. I’m drunk, and I’ll deny it to my dying day if you ask me whilst sober, but drunk... I don’t mind admitting it. He’s first class, Carra.”

“Whilst sober?” Carra cracked up, raising his fist to his mouth as his laughter shuddered into a chocking cough. “Are you Shakespeare now, lad?”

“No,” Steven raised his hand, blocking the dim light from his eyes. “Just drunk. Jaysus. Benitez will kill me tomorrow, he will.”

***

Xabi Alonso had been everything Steven and the papers wrote him up to be.

Actually, no, Xabi Alonso was his press and then _some_ ; the cool mastermind, the Napoleon of the field, the architect of the game. If Xabi just been that- highly skilled with a disaffected European cool- Steven might have been neutral, but the sixty yard howlers that he sank into the back of the net, the ease how he’d taken to the Kop moved the meter from neutral to like. What moved from like to more though, might have been the time when the BBC decided to make that wanker from _that paper_ , announce the match. 

“No!” Steven objected when he heard about it. “No, that’s wank. No, our supporters won’t have it.”

“You’re-” Benitez gave him one of those level looks that Steven hated. The one where he wrinkled his brow as if you were doing something completely stupid, and he had no response to it. “You’re overreacting.”

“I’m not! I’m _not_!” Steven shook his head, his arms outstretched in front of him. “I’m not asking to forfeit the match for fuck’s sake, I’m asking -”

“The club is doing what it can, through the channels with your BBC. That will be the end of it. I do sympathise, but I’ll have to ask you to not do anything right now, just focus on the game.”  
“But, I-”

“And the answer is no, Steven. I’m sorry you feel that way. If you’re emotional and need to sit this out, well, I can get someone else for the starting XI, and you can fight your way back on the team, yes?”

***

“Stevie,” Xabi greeted, clad in their Liverpool adidas sweats of red and black, with matching studs. His eyes warm and hair growing into a godawful fringe that skimmed his eyebrows. “Can I sit?”

“Sure,” Steven gestured, taking in all of Anfield. He’d come out to training an hour early, but found himself sitting cross legged on the field instead, staring out at the goal, and the concrete fences beyond it. “My kingdom, have at it.”

“Carra told me you might be here,” Xabi started, after he sat down cross-legged. If he had anything to say about the dew, the chill, the fact that Steven was doing himself a mischief seated on the grass, and more fool for Xabi himself to follow, he said nothing. 

“You heard about the bust up, eh?”

Xabi made a face, he did that, as if his features were tied to his thoughts, and he’d have some mad ones sometimes- his eyes squinting tightly shut, or his mouth twisting into various shapes. His faces made Steven laugh, usually, because they made him seem barking. But not today. 

“About the guy from the S-?” At Steven’s side glare, Xabi smoothly segued into, “that paper?”

“Yeah, the Beeb wants him to announce the match. Fucking wanker,” and just like that, Steven got heated again. “I want to say something about it, because I’m the captain, yeah? I wear the band, I should say something. But the club thinks it’s -” his hand made a fist at the thought. “The powers that be at the Beeb think it’s nothing. That the 96 mean nothing. That some wanker who smeared everyone of our supporters who died that day - that they’re nothing. I wanted to say something, and Rafa says the club has it in hand. Then threatens me with not playing, and-” at this, the twin urgings of shame and impotence tugged at him. “I want to play. I need to play, I’ve already proven myself being on the starting eleven, and he says -” Steven stopped, gulped, because again, shame. “If I have my hand in anything of the sort, he’ll drop me.”

The quiet filled with the noise of the community waking up in the distance. Lights on in the houses now, radios turned on, kettles at the ready for morning breakfast. 

“It’s not him, I know-” Steven wiped at his nose. “Rafa’s many things-but he’s not that,” he snuck a look at Xabi, who looked steadily at him. “But it’s club policy and the Beeb, but even they know it’s wrong, right?”

“They do,” Xabi placed his hand on Steven’s shoulder, the warm weight of it a comfort. “Everyone does. You want to play, we all do. There’s no shame in that.”

“No? So why do I feel like shit then?”

“Because we all want to be great, I think. Ambition on one hand, good deed on the other. At times, they’re not the same. Not that Benitez and me agree with everything-” a snuffle of laughter that had no amusement in it, just a bitter acceptance, because both of them knew that Xabi and Rafa didn’t get on- and the aggro not from Xabi’s end either. “But he’s right on this one. You show up, Stevie. Leave everything else to the club, to the fans. Just... show up and play for Liverpool. Remember what you told us when we first came here? You can’t shine on Hillsborough if Liverpool is a mid-table club. That if the club is great, the fan’s voices get louder... and they can’t forget the ‘96, yes?”

“Yeah,” Steven said, unconvinced by his own words. “Yeah.”

“Come,” Xabi clapped Steven’s shoulder once, before scrambling to his feet. “You’re supposed to be training, and not sitting on the grass getting a cramp. We honour the dead and the spirit of Liverpool in our own way, and that’s by winning.”

“Yeah,” Steven repeated, but heartened this time, because that made sense. He looked up from his boots to see Xabi holding out his hand, his palm up. Grabbing at Xabi’s hand, he allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet.

“Thanks.”

“ _De nada_ ,” Xabi said carelessly, as if it were nothing, but it meant something. His arm around Steven’s shoulders, their heads touching as they moved towards the centre of the training ground, where all the rails, spikes, goal netting and the tools of their trade lay.

***

“You were brilliant, Xabs,” Stevie whooped after the whistle blew, pressing a kiss to the side of Xabi’s throbbing temple, the salt of sweat a sharp taste on his lips, the heat and stink pumping off their bodies as the whistle blew.

A split second of silence, in the wake of the whistle, as the supporters looked at the scoreboard. Calculated. 

They won, and started singing again. This time, this song was new, Steven knew the tune- he only grew up in Liverpool and knew the Beatles, FFS- but this twist to it- this was new. A rumble at first, discordant voices trampling and jumbling into each other. A pause as if the voices were all in accord now, before, repeating. More voices joining in this time, because the chorus and the tune was catchy. Buggering hell, Steven quickly glanced at Xabi; fringe sticking to his forehead due to sweat, his features lax and blank with exhaustion, his arm the constant comforting weight across Steven’s shoulders. _He didn’t know_ , Steven’s first thought, his heart stuttering and swelling with the pride of it, of Liverpool knowing what they had in their midst, and gifting him with song. 

“Xabs, listen,” he said, dragging Xabi tighter against him. Arm around Xabi’s waist as support, Steven pivoted them both towards the area where the Liverpool supporters sang triumphantly, spelling out his name to that old Beatle’s tune _Life Goes On_. 

“A-L-O-N-S-O! XABI ALONSO! XABI, XABI ALONSO!”

“You’ve made it,” Steven breathed as he waved to the supporters, making a frantic ‘come on’ gesture for them to sing louder. The supporters did, moving from scattered noise to focused din, filling the air with it. “You’ve got a song!” Steven cried with delight. “You’ve gone and done it now!” he shouted, his face hurting from his grin. Xabi titled his head, processing the words, and he ducked his head, not before Steven saw his smile, a mixture of shy, embarrassed but pleased as punch. Fair play, Steven thought, as he should be. 

“Stevie, I-”

“Go on,” Steven pushed Xabi, using the inside of his elbow as leverage to nudge Xabi in the direction of the goal, where the fans were now standing, singing even louder, brandishing their banners, flags, scarves and the lot. Carra, Agger, Luis and Sammi stopped in their tracks and started clapping, because they knew the import of it. The fans giving you a song, you were in folklore now. 

Steven tilted his head towards the crowd, as Xabi looked at him, as if half wondering what sort of new arcane English ritual he’d stumbled into, and Steven was only too happy to show him. “It’s for you, it’s all yours, and you deserve it. Go on, take it.”

With roll of his eyes, and a smile, because God, they were still young, and their emotions shone from their faces like beacons then- Xabi slid his arm from Steven’s shoulders, started walking towards the goal, his steps quickening into a jog towards where the fans sang. He stood there, waved and clapped, and even mouthed the words to his name, making the supporters sing and clap louder. 

Steven looked across to Carra, who waggled his eyebrows and came over. The rest of the team drifted to where Steven and Carra stood, and the song catchy enough for them to join in too. When Xabi finally took his bow - an exaggerated thing that only send the stadium into shouts and howls of delight- and turned around, the rest of the Liverpool team stood there, clapping for him too. 

“I don’t know,” Steven finally said the words that had weighed on his heart for a while, as he and Carra looked at Xabi, hands over his head as he applauded the crowd, his smile warm and appreciative. “I don’t know if he’ll stay. The best ones don't.”

He kept clapping for Xabi, until his palms and fingers went from a tingle to burn. Looked at Xabi’s form gilded by light, as people took pictures, or held their hands out to him, the floodlights of the stadium shone down on him. The picture of him caught in Steven’s mind to be brought up at the odd moment in the future; hair drying, half spiky, half ordered, he clad in the red of Liverpool with the three white stripes along the long sleeves, his hands in the air as he alternated between clapping and waving, socks red, studs black. Xabi half turned around then; shyness and embarrassment completely gone, him utterly pleased and proud. His smile doing something stupid and twisted to Steven’s heart, and Carra, like he always did, got to the heart of the matter.

“So we take care of them until they go, right?”

“Right.”

***

“ When I’m the bloody king of England, I’m going to ban goodbyes. The whole shagging lot of them. No one can say goodbye, or farewell, and all that toss.”

“I think,” Xabi said, as he gestured to the waitress for water instead. “You’ve had enough to drink. It’s Carra’s retirement do, no?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Steven looked at the set up, the Real Madrid box. Swish, swish, swish. All sleek and touched with light, even with the sky dark outside. Surfaces gleamed and shone like water in twilight, and somehow, they found themselves to the far side of the room, with tables quiet enough and bathed in darkness for people to get up to all sorts of things quietly. Like Steven resting his head against the cool surface of the table. “I promised Carra I’d take him to see Real Madrid play. Then dinner. You were class, you were.”

“Elche CF is... they return to La Liga after a long time away. They’re still finding their feet in the _primavera_ , that’s all.”

Steven raised his head, leaned back in the plush confines of his seat, smiling at the waitress when she placed a fresh glass in front of him, not even bothered that it was more tonic water than anything else as he reached for it and took a generous sip. “You’re being modest,” Steven said, before he pushed his glass away. “Show me the pitch.”

“Hmm, _perdon_?”

“The pitch,” Steven repeated. “I want to see the pitch of the Bernabéu- and you can stop telling the waitress to give me water, thanks.”

Xabi, to his credit, didn’t put up excuses as to why they couldn’t get on the pitch, as much as smoothed the way that they could- _Sí, señores, pasa, pasa_. 

Steven found himself here, on the grass, in the middle of the field, looking at the empty seats. Four hours ago, about sixty thousand people screamed, sang, and waved flags, urging their team on. Real Madrid delivered what the Madridistas wanted. A win, but a win with _style_ , Elche had been dismantled, taken down bit by bit, Ronaldo and co mothballing their defence, and Xabi and co stifling their offence. As an observer, Steven could only sympathise with Elche, but admired the result.

Here was the pitch, the place that Michael Owen hared off to, but didn’t stick. The pitch Alonso plied his trade on, and four years later, he still stuck. Shagging Real Madrid. Legs heavy, giving way as if blindsided by an oversized medicine ball thrown in his midsection, Steven plopped on to the pitch with an _oof_ , not caring that his suit got creased and crushed in the process. 

“I hate goodbyes,” he said at last, looking at his shoes on the field. “I wish, I wish... I’d get everyone I liked in a room, and just _stayed_ together, yeah? Like, just stayed.”

“Someone would leave,” Xabi answered, ever the voice of reason, as he plopped down beside Steven, seemingly not caring too that his suit- he’d changed after the match- would get crushed too. “Someone always leaves, Stevie.”

“I know,” Steven rubbed at his face, trying to rub himself sober. “I know. I just hate goodbyes, you know?” and dammit, didn’t he feel maudy, like when his girls threw a strop for no reason. “I know people leave all the time, but I-” he looked at Xabi’s shoes, black brogues, shone to a high polish, reflecting the skies above them. “I let myself forget at times.”

“Stevie-” 

“No, no hair dryer treatment from my end- I just. Listen. When Carra told me he was leaving, it hit me like- well. I remember, Carra had this saying- like. We knew the best ones who came to Liverpool never stayed yeah? So he’d always say, ‘We take care of them until they go.’ And we did- and then when Carra left-”

“You wanted to know who’d take care of you?”

“No,” Steven inhaled on a sob of breath. “Carra was another one of the best ones. I stay, and stay. I never leave. Others do, I stay hoping that Liverpool- ugh, goodbyes. Fucking goodbyes.” He huffed, at this, mostly feeling all of twelve and stupid and hurting. “I need more hellos.”

They looked at each other for a while, Xabi's eyes dark amber under the floodlights. 

“It’s- it’s in _general_.” Steven drew himself up, tried to sit down cross legged, which was quite a feat in his dress trousers, and ended up crossing his legs at the ankles instead, his arms outstretched behind him, resting on the groomed grass. “I just wish I had some immunity, ‘s all. That I look at players coming through- and knowing they won’t stay- and I wish there were a cure for it- you know? Just not to care, especially the ones I gel with. The ones I could get titles with - I mean, you don’t play at this level not wanting more, do you? Or what's the point? Not to hope for an extra year or more time. I wish- I didn’t miss people when they go.”

And didn’t that sound completely twisted? Never mind twelve, Steven felt all of six, and uncomfortable with that, he looked away from Xabi, and looked back again on the field. The evening mild enough for his shirt sleeves to be rolled up. He had to get out of this funk; as a captain, he couldn’t curl up in a foetal position while waiting on some other player to peel off for other teams higher up in the league table- whatever the league. 

The warm weight of Xabi’s hand on his neck dragged him back into the present. Thumb and middle finger pressing into the muscle of flesh, fingers gentle at first, firmer with each sweep; the presses longer until Steven felt relaxed to the point of another type of drunk, his head lolling and drooping as if his neck were on one of those Mr Slinky things the girls liked to play with from the _Toy Story_ movies. 

“If you look at it like this; goodbyes leaves space for hellos, I think, you might feel better.” Xabi said at last, voice low and thoughtful. 

“Pfft,” Steven said, perversely enjoying his sulk, and being comforted out of it. “Pull the other one.”

“Every one of my countrymen who asks me about my time at the Premiership, or discuss it even in passing, I tell them how much I enjoyed it there, how it made me a better player. Never mind milk in the tea, and the stupid way you drive on your roads. Everyone that asks me about Liverpool, I tell them _si_ , go. Go. Every Spaniard I send to you is a new hello, if you look at it that way, no? Stevie -” 

At the change in Xabi’s voice, Steven slid his chin to his shoulder, to better look at Xabi; his features familiar but changed in a way that made him ache. The smile, more confident, the manner still polite, but he less quieter about himself somehow. 

Madrid made him more _him_ , and yeah, okay once he put it like _that_ , goodbyes made sense, but he still didn’t have to like them. Xabi continued, in that particular accent of his as if he knew where Steven’s thoughts were going. “I’m always turning and saying hello, when you and Liverpool welcome them and look out for them, you’re waving back.”

 _Oh_ , the thought came unbidden, flipping his low mood into something else and just _oh_. 

His feelings must have shown on his face, because Xabi didn’t laugh. Just wordlessly pulled Steven towards him, crowding him in close with his arm. As easy as thought, Steven tucked his head between Xabi’s shoulder and chin, feeling the beat of Xabi’s pulse against his forehead. Xabi smelt like comfort; wood, hops, the sun of fresh laundry on his skin and the faint green of grass, with bracing, cool smell of sports liniment as the base of everything. His shoulder strong and covered with a good dress shirt, the material smooth and warm under his cheek. Xabi’s arm slid from his shoulder to circle at his waist, and it might have been Liverpool again, them propping each other up on the field after an exhausting, bone chilling, body wearing English match, with the rain and mud weighing their limbs down. 

He exhaled, touch and sense memory smoothing out the sharp points of sorrow. He missed _this_ , missed _them_. This is what went away when Xabi left; the comfort, someone who’d been blooded in the trenches with him at the same time, who knew the empty spaces and filled them. For a brief minute, Steven closed his eyes, dipping in the emotion that swam through him. The good kind, with someone who knew the worst parts of him and not being put off- not the doubts that haunted him at turns, or wondering who he’d let down again. Or eyeing up the fact that he had a sixth sense of which player eyeing to leave and how. 

“Here comes Carra and Arbeloa,” Xabi’s voice thrummed through his chest, as Steven unwillingly slitted his eyes open, not wanting to move. Xabi’s body shifted, tilted, as he raised an arm to wave at them. 

“Hmm,” Steven stayed where he was, Xabi’s body rocked against him as he laughed, his breath tickling the crown of Steven’s hair. 

“You’re as bad as my children, wanting a - how do you say it? A cuddle?”

"Morale boosters, you mean."

“Jon goes around hugging things. Garbage bins, poles... I think he half expects them to hug him back.”

“Strange habit, that.”

“Just as strange as you wanting to be the King of England to shag goodbyes.”

 _To shag goodbyes-_ , and Steven sputtered out a laugh, which faded into a sigh as he watched the figures of Carra and Arbeloa now sharpening into view. Close enough to see their features, but still at a distance unable to hear what they were saying. “I forget that people will _leave_. Stupid. I miss Carra already.”

“And there was a time, yes, you did not- you didn’t- know him at all. You maybe say goodbye to someone else before you say hello to him.”

Yeah, and Steven’s thoughts flashed on Michael leaving- someone back then, he’d have wanted in a room with everyone he liked. How in that window of loss, that goodbye made for new hellos. Xabi and Luis, for starters. The highs of camaraderie and the run of trophies that followed- the fact that he now found himself sprawled out on the Bernabéu years later with someone he was proud and glad to call his friend through everything. He’d still hate goodbyes on principle though, and if a dodgy guy came up to him from nowhere offering him the cure of forgetfulness, an immunisation from the ache that loss left- well. 

Sitting here with Xabi, seeing Carra hanging off Arbeloa as drunk as a Lord, his face glowing with happiness and drink; the rest of the small knot of their companions in the back, gawking at the stadium in all its silent glories... he’d pass on the offer, thanks. People left all the time, and he’d forget that’s what people did, but that was a bit of all right, at the end of it. Because moments like this- filled everything else. 

 

FIN


End file.
